It’s the final countdown to Christmas in far north Lapland
and an archaeological dig unearths a scary dark truth that has been buried for
centuries. Soon, mysterious things begin to happen to the townspeople such as
their radiators being stolen, sacks of potatoes are being pilfered but the
potatoes are left, a family’s heard of reindeer are brutally slaughtered, and
local children start to disappear. The only person with any idea as to what
this entire thing means is a young boy named Pietari and soon it falls to him,
his father, and two of his father co-workers to save the children from a most
dastardly evil… the real Santa Claus!
The feedback after the blurb on the cover of this movie reads as follows:
“Imagine if Joe Dante, Dr Seuss, The
Brothers Grimm, and Guillermo Del Toro had sex under the mistletoe one romantic
eve in Finland and birthed this film.”
That pretty much sums it up really.
This movie was fantastically bizarre, beginning as a suspenseful holiday horror
movie and then ending on a twisted but bitingly funny high note. As far as
holiday movies go, this is a good one if you want to break the consistent flow
of cheery-kiddy-feel-good Christmas movies at this “festive” season of the
year.
It’s the final countdown to Christmas in far north Lapland and an
archaeological dig unearths a scary dark truth that has been buried for
centuries. Soon, mysterious things begin to happen to the townspeople such as
their radiators being stolen, sacks of potatoes are being pilfered but the
potatoes are left, a family’s heard of reindeer are brutally slaughtered, and
local children start to disappear. The only person with any idea as to what
this entire thing means is a young boy named Pietari and soon it falls to him,
his father, and two of his father co-workers to save the children from a most
dastardly evil… the real Santa Claus!
The film’s length, I think, plays a major part in the movie’s jagged and
crammed in atmosphere. Running a mere 84 minutes long, Rare Exports, for the most part, was a good slow and suspenseful
horror story which then built up to an somewhat unfulfilling climax, but then
quickly turned around and came out with quite a funny little ending.
To me,
this movie started off strong and good, but then suddenly found itself against
the clock so there was an disappointing climax tacked on, but the writers,
because the climactic battle was so unsatisfactory, came up with a quirky
silver lining to leave the audience with and fill up the last five minutes of
the movie. At the end of the day, I enjoyed this movie quite a bit, but it is really weird!
Starring Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila. Tommi Korpela, Rauno
Juvonen, Per Christian Ellefsen, Ilmari Jarvenpaa, Jonathan Hutchings, and
Risto Salmi, Rare Exports is both a
twisted frightening and funny holiday movie filled with action, horror,
violence, gore, drama, and comedy. For a while in the middle there I was a bit
“oh where is this going” but it ended up being a bit of all right.
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